Global shortage of affordable fertilisers will leave no household unscathed

Soaring costs mean that farmers the world over are testing the limits of how little fertiliser they can do without 

Group of white jumbo-bags with chemical fertilisers in a warehouse 

For the first time ever, farmers the world over — all at the same time — are testing the limits of how little chemical fertiliser they can apply without devastating their yields come harvest time. Early predictions are bleak.

In Brazil, the world’s biggest soybean producer, a 20% cut in potash use could bring a 14% drop in yields, according to MB Agro. In Costa Rica, a coffee co-operative representing 1,200 small producers sees output falling as much as 15% next year if the farmers miss even one-third of normal application.

In West Africa, falling fertiliser use will shrink this year’s rice and corn harvest by a third, according to the International Fertilizer Development Center, a food security non-profit group.

Patrice Annequin, a fertiliser market expert at IFDC based in Ivory Coast, comments: 

Probably farmers will grow enough to feed themselves. But the question is what they will have to feed the cities.

When you add increased hunger across West Africa on top of existing risks like terrorism, “this is absolutely dangerous for many governments in our region”.

For the billions of people who don’t work in agriculture, the global shortage of affordable fertiliser likely reads like a distant problem. 

In truth, it will leave no household unscathed. In even the least-disruptive scenario, soaring prices for synthetic nutrients will result in lower yields and higher grocery prices for everything from milk to beef to packaged foods across the developed world.

Lower fertiliser use risks engendering malnutrition, political unrest and, ultimately, hunger. 

“I’m reducing the use of fertiliser in this crop cycle. I can’t afford such stratospheric prices,” Marcelo Cudia, 61, a farmer in the Philippines’ rice-producing region of Central Luzon, said outside the patch of land he’s been cultivating for the last 13 years.

About 12,000 miles away, Brazilian soybean farmer Napoleão Rutilli is facing the same tough choices.

“If fertilisers are expensive, we’ll use less fertilisers. If we’ll use less, we’ll produce less,” said the second-generation farmer, 33. “Food prices will increase and everyone will suffer”.

• Bloomberg